What is the Author Coalition Survey?

SFWA is a member organization in the Author’s Coalition of America. The Authors Coalition of America LLC is an association of twenty independent authors’ organizations representing text writers, songwriters, visual artists, illustrators and photographers. This formal association marked a milestone in the history of American author groups, and our union has had a healthy unifying effect on American writers as a whole. Together, we represent over 120,000 authors and artists.

The Coalition was incorporated in 1994, by ten founding Member Organizations, for the purpose of repatriating and distributing the creator’s share of foreign non-title specific royalty payments for American works photocopied abroad. Previous to 1994, these collective funds were sent to a U.S. licensing agency, Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), where they were spent on copyright enforcement.

With the establishment of Authors Coalition, these funds are more effectively focused on the rightsholders for whom they were paid by proportionate distributions to the associations constitutionally directed to promote and advance their careers.

The survey tells SFWA in which categories our members qualify as published authors. The ACA uses that information to distribute funds to the member organizations.

For purposes of this survey, a “published” work means that 1) the work is reasonably capable of being photocopied abroad and is not self-published, or 2) if the work is self-published, that there have been no fewer than 1,000 copies sold, that the work is commercially distributed outside the U.S. and is reasonably capable of being photocopied abroad. For purposes of this survey, author-subsidized publications shall be considered self-published. The list is not inclusive, but all Coalition members must use this list because this is how foreign reprographic rights organizations conduct their surveys to determine what kinds of non-title specific works are being photocopied.

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